


Coffee Stains

by Psyonixre



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: F/F, Friends to Lovers, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 17:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5975434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Psyonixre/pseuds/Psyonixre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short Harlivy one-shot about shared apartments, sunflowers and cherry lip gloss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Stains

Poison Ivy’s life was severely split in two - before and after the lab. 

Before was bright and hopeful, a young scientist finally making her mark on the world. A career, a marriage, a home, a family, a  _ life _ in front of her.

After was a dark abyss of eco-terrorism and a war against both the villains and the heroes. All of those things were now Unobtainables, things out of her reach, things she wasn't worthy of, things she wasn't allowed to have.

To Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn was an Unobtainable. 

So, like all the other things, Ivy tried not to think about her too much. This, however, was Harley, and Harley demanded to be the center of attention. Perhaps not consciously, but the very way she moved, sharp movements with big gestures and a dance in her step, brought eyes from all over the room. Some eyes may linger on a wide smile and sparkling eyes, ears picking up a light hearted voice under run with a deep echo of strength, maybe even the faint spattering of freckles right on the bridge of her nose, or the way her hair shone almost white in the sun-

Oh.

She’d just asked a question.

Right.

“Sure Harley.”  _ That was a good bet right?  _

Harley squinted at her, cherry red lips pursing comically. _ OK maybe not. _

“I was  _ saying _ how off the sunflowers were looki-” 

“SHHhhhh. They’re sensitive,” Ivy interrupted, fully aware that Harley knew that even to Poison Ivy, plants didn’t have emotion, but saying it regardless. It was an old joke, from when Ivy would use plants as an excuse to stay away from the general populace.  _ Old joke indeed _ , Ivy thought staring out the wide apartment window at the bustling streets filled with mindless little people doing mindless little people things. Now, strictly, the apartment wasn’t theirs, but who was to know if a couple of squatters were taking up residence there? 

Ivy looked back up at Harley, who was staring straight at her with a delighted grin on her face, bed-head still frizzy from the apartment floor.

“Really?” 

Ivy blinked at her over her coffee before shifting her eyes away to the street again and taking a sip. Most people soon discovered that looking at Harley too long was kind of like looking at a pretty flower too long, after a while, it became difficult to look away. Or maybe it was just to Ivy that Harley was so mesmerising, a breath of life in a cemetery. 

“PAM! Hey PaMMY!” Fingers snapped in front of ivy’s face, causing her to lean back far too quickly, spilling a small amount of coffee down her front. 

“Oh sorry! Lemme get that for you,” Harley said in quick succession, too quick if Ivy’s past experiences had taught her anything. Nevertheless, Ivy didn't really have time to react before Harley was leaning  _ way too close  _ with the napkin. Ivy barely held back a pained noise of surprise as Harley quickly scrubbed off the coffee stains with a viciousness Ivy thought her shirt could've done without. Before she could do too much thinking though, Harley suddenly looked up, about five centimetres away from her own face. She wasn’t grinning anymore, but her brows weren’t drawn together in anger, or her teeth bared, as was Harley’s custom. 

Her eyes were flicking staring straight up at Ivy, close enough that Ivy could see her own breath gently fluttering across Harley’s eyelashes. Ivy swears she could hear only her own shallow, shuddering breaths in the echoing silence. Her lips are shaking a little bit, and it’s all she can do not to surge forward. 

Then Harley’s grin is back, and she’s smiling like nothing happened, “All done, Red! Spiffin’ clean!” 

Ivy squints, and looks down at the large amount of coffee still dripping from her shirt. She quickly snatches the napkin from Harley’s hands and starts brushing herself down. When she’s done, she looks back up to see Harley staring out the window, entangled in thoughts, an unusually soft smile on her face. 

Ivy can’t help but stare. The sun is shining just so, and it's lighting up her face in a way she's only read about in books. Her hair is tangled and messy, in a loose bun, and she’s wearing a large ratty shirt Ivy is certain she either traded a hobo for or stole from a Walmart. Her makeup is smudged and looks like she just woke up from a hangover, with streaks of red and blue on her temples and dark smudges under her eyes from the mascara. In short, she looks beautiful, and Ivy hates her a little for it.

“Hey, Red.” Harley interrupts, and Ivy jumps a little, wondering if she’d been caught, “I been meanin’ to tell you somethin’.”

Ivy freezes a bit at that, and carefully unfolds her legs so she can reach to put down her coffee cup. Whatever she said next, she didn’t want anymore coffee spills. She didn’t think she could handle that. 

“And what would that be?"

Harley takes a moment to flick her eyes up and down the street before turning her head to face Ivy, and leans it back against the window frame. She’s staring straight at her now, face framed on one side with the morning sunlight, without a trace of a smile. Its the same expression as moments before. Ivy’s dread is outweighed by her desperation to know what it means, and she quirks an eyebrow as she turns to face the window.

“I think I found someone I’d like to fall in love with,” Harley said gingerly, as if putting a careful foot down to test the ground. Regardless of how careful she stepped, Ivy’s world had fell out from under her. Everything was frozen around her, the faint murmur of the gotham streets, the humming of the appliances and the faint chirping from the city birds all faded out to a ringing silence. Ivy, breath stuck in her throat, slowly moved her eyes from the window to Harley’s, looking into icy blue eyes more clear and vulnerable than she’s ever seen before.

Ivy’s waiting for a name, the name of a friend, an acquaintance, a villain, or a hero. She’s waiting and it hurts so much. She feels strung on a wire far above the ground, stretched and unbalanced,  ready to tip over at a moment's notice. She closes her eyes, she never could handle heights very well.

She hears the telltale sound of moment, a shift of fabric and the gentle sliding across polished wood floors, closer to Ivy. She can’t open her eyes. She knows that, as long as she lives, she’ll never be ready for the rejection, not from Harley, not like this. 

Harley’s voice, when it starts, a low, echoing tune, is closer than expected, perhaps inches away. “What do you say Pam? Think you could fall in love with me too?”

Ivy’s eyes flashed open to meet a sky of blue, breath gone in a punch to the gut, suddenly gasping for air. She swallows the lump in her throat. This couldn’t be real, there was no way. 

Except Harley was moving closer, and Ivy didn’t think if she was dreaming she could think up the way Harley’s lips parted so quietly, soft and pink and glistening with chapstick. 

Ivy was suddenly aware of her own quaking lips, chapped and broken, worried through on one side as she chewed it raw, but Harley didnt seem to care, her eyes were fluttering closed, and she was tilting her head to the side, leaning forward. But she didn’t move any closer, she just hovered there, waiting for Ivy to gain her breath and make up her mind. 

Ivy swallowed again, closed her eyes, and leaned forward, maybe a bit more desperately than she needed to. 

The kiss wasn’t fireworks or sparks or a natural disaster in the making, it was smooth and calm, lips gliding over lips, the taste of cherry mixing over tongues. It wasn’t wonder and the world, but it was beautiful all the same, it tasted like gun powder and sunflowers, coffee and candy; it tasted like home. In that moment, kissing the Unobtainable Harley Quinn, in a small apartment on the north side of Gotham with the sunlight filtering through the windows and mindless little people doing mindless little people things, Ivy had only one thought, ‘ _ I think I already have _ ’.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it please leave a kudos! It means a lot, thank you!~  
> Hmu with prompts, questions or just chattin on my tumblr - Dystacit.tumblr.com


End file.
